Blog 9

  If I could go back in time and change something that happened in my life, it would be when I got into a car accident with my brother. This was the most traumatic thing I have experienced in my life. The morning it happened, we were both on the way to work, and a car cut him off and we ran off the road. When he tried to get back on the interstate, he over-corrected and the truck turned sideways. We started to roll and on the second roll, I hit my head on the handle and was knocked out. When I woke up there were cars and tractor trailers going by us at 70 miles per hour. This was probably the most stressful part of the whole experience. We were sitting in the left lane on the interstate and the doors were wedged shut, and would not open. It felt like hours before the police, fire fighters, and ambulance got there and finally slowed the traffic down and started to help us. They cut the doors off and got me onto a stretcher and took me away first because my neck was hurting really bad, I was in a full body brace and neck brace. There was no hospital with a trauma center near where we were, so they took us to Riverside Hospital right here next to CNU (I didn't know I was coming here yet). After getting there, they started with multiple x-rays and staples in my head to stop the bleeding. I stayed in the hospital for almost a whole day, from 6:00am-4:00pm. Once released I went straight home and didn't move for a week. The doctors diagnosed me with whiplash, a moderate concussion, a broken sternum, road rash on my hand, and glass in my arms and hands. Once I could start getting out of bed and doing stuff on my own, I was ready to start working again. Before I could, I had to go to physical therapy where they tested my brain reaction time, making sure that it was healing, and also working on getting more movement in my neck. The effects this accident had on me were more than just physical, and I believe it hurt me more mentally than physically. I was scared to ride in a car for a while, especially with people I didn't know. I was also a couple months away from being able to get my learners permit. After this accident, I did not want to even think about getting behind the wheel of a vehicle. I finally got it about a year later and quickly got over what had scared me for a while. 

  About 1 hour after the accident when my parents got there

  Glass in my pinky and on my arm, road rash around my wrist